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Rural Kansas is dying

newfoodeconomy.org

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Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#101

Post by aantix »

DanAndersen wrote: post #18

The failed promise of telecommuting is a tragedy of the tech world. I'm a Kansan born and raised in the KC area (suburban rather than rural), and I wish a work-from-home career was more feasible in my line of work. I'd like nothing more than to live in a small Midwestern town; the city-hives hold no real attraction to me. The Internet should have freed more of us to live where we want, but in the most connected point…

Remote software dev jobs definitely exist. Especially in SF/NYC/Austin/Seattle.

I live in Lincoln, NE, consult with SF startups.

Most companies are on Slack (or some sort of chat) and colleagues would rather Slack messages all day instead of walking over to someone's desk, making your case for remote work even more feasible.

If you find a job that seems interesting (even if remote isn't advertised), just ask.. Some companies may surprise you.

Here's my write-up on how to ask:

"How to Get a Remote Job, Even When Remote Isn’t Advertised"

https://medium.com/@aantix/how-to-get-a-remote-job-even-when...

A large list of job sites with Remote listings.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15...

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#102

Post by walrus01 »

beaorn wrote: post #97
chrissnell wrote: post #70

I'm writing this post from my home in Manhattan, Kansas, a mid-sized town in the Flint Hills. We had a gorgeous sunset tonight and I watched it from my back porch, staring across my lawn in the rolling ranch land behind me. I'm working for a San Francisco YC alum tech company but living in one of the most affordable places in the US. Life is amazing out here. I have gigabit fiber internet, great third-wave coffee sho…

Also live outside Manhattan, KS. While there are plenty of areas of rural Kansas with poor options for Internet, some here might be surprised to know that there are a fair amount of local / rural telecoms in Kansas that have extensive fiber buildouts covering their entire service area including very small towns and rural areas. WTC is a small local telcom in the Manhattan area with fiber built out in the nearby small…

ISP that builds fiber here: FTTH can be pretty cheap if you have:

a) cooperative local government that lets you use the ROW (right-of-way) without a lot of hassle

b) 100% aerial plant, very little or no underground. Aerial is way cheaper.

c) relatively low cost labor for bucket truck construction crews to hang the aerial fiber.

I'd never heard of this WTC / Wamego before, not surprising since I do nothing facilities based near the midwest. But for those who are interested:

https://bgp.he.net/AS19504#_asinfo

Kind of surprising to find an ISP with that much v4 space that hasn't put effort into reaching a major IX point and actually peering with anybody yet... They have BGP sessions with Cox, and HE transit, and that's it.

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#103

Post by eventualhorizon »

pasbesoin wrote: post #76
chrissnell wrote: post #70

I'm writing this post from my home in Manhattan, Kansas, a mid-sized town in the Flint Hills. We had a gorgeous sunset tonight and I watched it from my back porch, staring across my lawn in the rolling ranch land behind me. I'm working for a San Francisco YC alum tech company but living in one of the most affordable places in the US. Life is amazing out here. I have gigabit fiber internet, great third-wave coffee sho…

Who's supplying the gigabit fiber connectivity, out there? P.S. Answered my own question. Information may be out of date, but quite limited coverage residential plans from a couple of companies, and somewhat more but still limited coverage from a few companies business class offers. Wish I had that many choices. ATT finally dropped a fiber line into our neighborhood, but it's not hooked up yet. Given what Comcast is…

AT&T dropped fiber in my front yard too. I ignored it for a few months because previously they only offered bundles with tv and telephone and crappy speeds to boot.

A coworker told me he was getting symmetric gigabit from AT&T for $70/month so I decided to check them out. I switched from Comcast and everything has been awesome except for the supplied wireless router. My iDevices will not work reliably on it so I added my own.

My bill dropped almost in half and I got away from Comcast's metered, expensive, less reliable crap.

I am in Atlanta so the 'threat' of Google Fiber may explain the great deal I got. Not affiliated with AT&T at all and am honestly surprised at how good the service has been. YMMV

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#104

Post by beaorn »

Bahamut wrote: post #91
chrissnell wrote: post #70

I'm writing this post from my home in Manhattan, Kansas, a mid-sized town in the Flint Hills. We had a gorgeous sunset tonight and I watched it from my back porch, staring across my lawn in the rolling ranch land behind me. I'm working for a San Francisco YC alum tech company but living in one of the most affordable places in the US. Life is amazing out here. I have gigabit fiber internet, great third-wave coffee sho…

For me, weather is a big issue - I’ve spent 4 years in Champaign-Urbana in Illinois, and I got sick of winter the first year I was there (two weeks where the high was -15 F, and the low was even lower than -30 F). If the weather were better, I would seriously consider it, but I tired of suffering through that cold real fast.

It gets cold, but not near that bad or at least not for extended periods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan,_Kansas#Climate

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#105

Post by paulryanrogers »

niftich wrote: post #99
DanAndersen wrote: post #18

The failed promise of telecommuting is a tragedy of the tech world. I'm a Kansan born and raised in the KC area (suburban rather than rural), and I wish a work-from-home career was more feasible in my line of work. I'd like nothing more than to live in a small Midwestern town; the city-hives hold no real attraction to me. The Internet should have freed more of us to live where we want, but in the most connected point…

Telecommuting "succeeded" in the form of offshoring. A seemingly dissimilar form of work, offshore workers nonetheless provide talent at a lower cost, in a locale that's far removed from the home office, but managed closely by supervisors at the remote site. Widespread telecommuting -- in the sense of independent workers with no on-site supervision -- would lead to the same labor cost arbitrage. You wouldn't be worki…

IME that's already happened and in some cases come back to on shore. Programming is fundamentally communication: translating business and consumer needs into technical solutions. If a remote team shares the language and enough culture to do that work well then the money will follow.

I'd guess that culture, needs, and language are diverse enough that it won't be a race to the bottom any time soon.

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#106

Post by Fjolsvith »

pasbesoin wrote: post #76
chrissnell wrote: post #70

I'm writing this post from my home in Manhattan, Kansas, a mid-sized town in the Flint Hills. We had a gorgeous sunset tonight and I watched it from my back porch, staring across my lawn in the rolling ranch land behind me. I'm working for a San Francisco YC alum tech company but living in one of the most affordable places in the US. Life is amazing out here. I have gigabit fiber internet, great third-wave coffee sho…

Who's supplying the gigabit fiber connectivity, out there? P.S. Answered my own question. Information may be out of date, but quite limited coverage residential plans from a couple of companies, and somewhat more but still limited coverage from a few companies business class offers. Wish I had that many choices. ATT finally dropped a fiber line into our neighborhood, but it's not hooked up yet. Given what Comcast is…

I live in NW Kansas and we have gigabit fiber everywhere in this corner. Ruraltel/Nextech is the company that scored the $300 million grant that was a rider on the Hurricane Katrina bill for the purpose of running fiber throughout northwest Kansas.

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#107

Post by jarvelov »

stephengillie wrote: post #88
Animats wrote: post #40

Progress! More food from fewer farmers! You want millions of peasants tilling the land by hand?

Once upon a time, it took 90% of the US population to produce enough food to feed 100% of the US population. Today, it takes 2% of the US population to produce enough food to feed 100% of the US population - freeing the other 88% to pursue other, more lofty goals, such as "Instagram Model" or "Net Influencer". Picking berries or being a "net influencer"? Where is our time really more well-spent?

With those options then Net influencer or Instagram model surely? When the task of picking berries can be automated the manual labor should be shifted to other activities.

Naturally one might argue that it would be better for society where it so that people put in their hours into other fields than those that seek to profit on people's vanity.

However, when the option is what would essentially be meaningless work when compared to a machine performing the same task, then for me at least I would prefer people to be Net influencers or Instagram models.

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#108

Post by beaorn »

swampthinker wrote: post #75
chrissnell wrote: post #70

I'm writing this post from my home in Manhattan, Kansas, a mid-sized town in the Flint Hills. We had a gorgeous sunset tonight and I watched it from my back porch, staring across my lawn in the rolling ranch land behind me. I'm working for a San Francisco YC alum tech company but living in one of the most affordable places in the US. Life is amazing out here. I have gigabit fiber internet, great third-wave coffee sho…

I think a big deciding factor is kids/age. I'm young and still prefer the city life, so 1 college just isn't going to cut it for me.

I would agree that kids and age play a big part in the appeal of Manhattan for people outside of college age range, but it has other things going for it besides just K-State. https://livability.com/best-places/top-100-best-places-to-li...

Kansas City is only a 2 hour drive away to go do bigger city stuff.

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#109

Post by stephengillie »

jarvelov wrote: post #107
stephengillie wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, it took 90% of the US population to produce enough food to feed 100% of the US population. Today, it takes 2% of the US population to produce enough food to feed 100% of the US population - freeing the other 88% to pursue other, more lofty goals, such as "Instagram Model" or "Net Influencer". Picking berries or being a "net influencer"? Where is our time really more well-spent?

With those options then Net influencer or Instagram model surely? When the task of picking berries can be automated the manual labor should be shifted to other activities. Naturally one might argue that it would be better for society where it so that people put in their hours into other fields than those that seek to profit on people's vanity. However, when the option is what would essentially be meaningless work whe…

If only we could automate the attribute of "being a human". Alas, as I often say, "as long as humans exist, there will be a demand for other humans to explain things to them". Thus a machine picks the berries while a human explains their feelings about the berries.

Could not the human do both, and take the job back from the robots?

Re: Rural Kansas is dying

#110

Post by boomboomsubban »

chrissnell wrote: post #70

I'm writing this post from my home in Manhattan, Kansas, a mid-sized town in the Flint Hills. We had a gorgeous sunset tonight and I watched it from my back porch, staring across my lawn in the rolling ranch land behind me. I'm working for a San Francisco YC alum tech company but living in one of the most affordable places in the US. Life is amazing out here. I have gigabit fiber internet, great third-wave coffee sho…

Though I understand that it likely seems rural, by US definitions you live in an urban area. Any area with over 50,000 people is urban, which Manhattan manages even before adding the 25,000 non-residents there most of the year.

The labeling system seems outdated. I live in an area that is rural, yet everyone in a 120 mile radius of me would say I lived in a city. A new classification of "rural city" seems necessary.

The pedantic version of rural America is dying a rather ugly death. There are still nice places in the Midwest, but the further away you are from a true city the bleaker it often becomes.

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